Bullying Prevention Takes Time to Implement, But Worth The Effort

As with any public health issue, it takes time for effective change to take hold. Just think about how many years it took to educate Americans on the dangers of tobacco, childhood obesity, the importance of car passenger seat belts and bike helmets. Think about the time and resources that continue to be invested to convince millions that these issues negatively effect ones health. However, despite these challenges, we are seeing a shift towards greater awareness.

However, when you discuss bullying in the context of other public health issues it is only recently that we feel the same urgency associated with these other examples. The effects of bullying are now considered as tangible as lung cancer or Type II Diabetes. We now know that bullying can lead to long-term negative physical and mental health problems.

We see too often on the news the very worst of bullying; stories only told when a violent act or a suicide takes place. And, these violent acts may be just that, examples of violence which may or may not be consistent with the accepted definition of bullying. There are countless untold stories of bullying that happen every single day to thousands of children.

The twenty years of study directed towards bullying prevention requires an approach equal to other pressing public health concerns. It requires a strategic allocation of resources along with expertise and eventually the right legislation to effect change and eliminate this harmful behavior.

Five years ago, when the Highmark Foundation decided to make bullying prevention one of the five key focus areas in its Healthy High Five Initiative, educators and public health professionals knew at that point we were about to make great strides to help prevent bullying in Pennsylvania. In 2007 the Highmark Foundation embarked on developing a public health strategy to appropriately and effectively implement programs at the school level to positively effect change.

The first step was to identify that well studied and highly respected Olweus Bullying Prevention Program (OBPP) as the foundation to our effort. Founded by Swedish professor Dan Olweus, who is acknowledged as the founding father of bullying prevention, the OBPP has been successfully implemented in schools worldwide, and has become the basis for the Foundation’s efforts to deal with bullying in local schools.

To follow this public health approach in addressing the epidemic of bullying, the Highmark Foundation also built a strong coalition of professionals to successfully implement the OBPP. By working with Clemson University’s Institute on Family and Neighborhood Life, Dr. Olweus, the Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, Windber Research Institute and the Pennsylvania Center for Safe Schools, the Foundation was able to develop a strategy to reach thousands of school children as well as monitor and evaluate the process.

Research consistently reveals that school-based prevention programs—including those that target bullying—are more likely to produce desired changes in behavior if they are implemented with fidelity, monitored and evaluated. Knowing this, the coalition of experts used the existing evaluation strategies imbedded in the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program as well as developed a range of additional evaluation strategies to determine a school’s readiness to participate in anti-bullying efforts, to monitor the school’s implementation of the OBPP and to assess outcomes from the program.

Our constant evaluation allowed us to make sure that we adapted, modified and enhanced the Highmark Foundation bullying prevention initiative for schools in our region. To do this, the Highmark Foundation also created the Bullying Prevention Institute (BPI). Among the BPI’s responsibilities was to develop enhancements that could be implemented in the existing OBPP. For example, since the OBPP was developed in Europe, modifications needed to be made for implementation in Pennsylvania schools. Another major enhancement to the OBPP was implementation at the high school level. This had never been done on such a wide scale before.

Finally, we had to develop a bullying prevention effort that was sustainable. Support from the Highmark Foundation would have all been for naught had we not increased capacity within schools and school districts to implement the OBPP. By developing long-term resources for administrators and teachers, we ensured that schools will continue to create a culture that deters bullying behaviors.

We have made a tremendous impact in five years. Since the program began, we have been able to reach:

• 210,000 students, 13 percent of Pennsylvania’s student population
• 427 out of 3,280 school buildings
• More than 17,000 teachers
• Approximately 345,000 parents

Most importantly, our bullying prevention efforts are the largest implementation of the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program in the United States. This effort serves as a national model for others to study and replicate. Our work is not done yet, but we are proud of our accomplishments. We are also proud of the thousands of teachers, parents and students that have embraced an anti-bullying culture.

We’re not free of bullying behavior, just as we are not free of tobacco use or the obesity epidemic, but because of the efforts of many, we are certainly heading in the right direction.